WAITING FOR THE YELLOW KID
In a message to the Platinum Age Comics mailing list, Leonardo De Sá reports the publication of "Aspettando Yellow Kid: Il Fumetto Prima dell'Industria del Fumetto" ("Waiting for the Yellow Kid: Comics Before the Industry of Comics"), a 64-page full-color booklet written by Alfredo Castelli and published under the auspices of the Lucca Museo Italiano del Fumetto. "Please note that only 100 copies were made at this point, print-on-demand," writes De Sá. "A more permanent edition is scheduled to be published next March, when the Lucca Museum will be completed." Castello calls the booklet "a good-luck token to the Comics Museums all over the world from the newlyborn 'Italian Museum of Comics' and from author Alfredo Castelli. It may be freely translated, printed and sold at the Museums."
INFO: Yahoo Groups: Platinum Age Comics
LINK: Museo Italiano del Fumetto
posted by Egon on Wednesday, November 05, 2003

HERGÉ'S ALPH-ART IN NEW EDITION
The "Objectif Tintin" website reports a January 9, 2004 release-date for "Tintin & l'Alph-art" in a new, substantially reformatted edition. The new version of Hergé's unfinished twenty-fourth Tintin story will offer better legibility than a previous facsimile edition and will include recently discovered documents which, it is claimed, should shed new light on the story's ending. The volume will be presented in a format and with a page count consistent with the rest of the Tintin albums published by Casterman.
INFO: Objectif Tintin
posted by Egon on Wednesday, November 05, 2003

TROLLOP TURNS TOMINE'S PAGES
The November issue of the "Bookslut" book review and commentary website features comics-related articles including an interview with Adrian Tomine and a review of Eve Gilbert's "Tits, Ass and Real Estate." On current projects, Tomine says: "I'm about to finish up issue 9 of Optic Nerve. It's the first part (of three) of the longest story I've written to date. It sounds ambitious, but really it's like one of my usual stories that's been slowed way down."
INFO: Bookslut
posted by Egon on Wednesday, November 05, 2003

PALOMAR CITY LIMITS
Minneapolis' "City Pages" reviews "Palomar: The Heartbreak Soup Stories," the new collection of "Love & Rockets" stories by Gilbert Hernandez. "Happily, Palomar's single-book form suddenly makes comprehending the larger story easy," writes Peter S. Scholtes for the paper. "But it does that achievement one better by rearranging episodes (often disregarding publishing dates altogether) to create a real novel -- what Gilbert has always intended his stories to be... Like the mysterious ancient statues on Palomar's outskirts, the artist's jagged, staccato drawings are funny and scary -- their blankness inviting projection."
INFO: The City Pages
posted by Egon on Wednesday, November 05, 2003

EXCLAMATION MARKS
Canada's Exclaim magazine reviews Chester Brown's "Louis Riel." Addressing the book's substantial endnotes, Brown says: "The notes are there because I wanted to be honest. I wanted people to know that I had altered certain facts and to know why I did that. If I could have told Riel's story in 1000 pages instead of the 200 or so that I had planned, I wouldn't have had to change a thing."
INFO: Exclaim Magazine
posted by Egon on Wednesday, November 05, 2003

SFAR'S KIDS' BOOK LINE
BDNews reports a new series of comic albums for children edited by Joann Sfar and published by Editions Bréal, traditionally a publisher of educational material. The first group of six books includes work by Emile Bravo, Emmanuel Guibert, Sandrina Jardel, Riad Sattouf and Sfar. Sfar had previously produced a line of books for the same publisher called "La Petite Bibliothèque Philosophique de Joann Sfar."
INFO: BDNews
LINK: Editions Bréal
posted by Egon on Wednesday, November 05, 2003

PEOPLE ARE STRANGE
The October 30 - November 5, 2003 issue of Seattle's "Stranger" features an E.C. parody cover by Rick Altergott and a series of comic strips about serial killers with art by Michael Kupperman, Eric Reynolds, R. Sikoryak and others.
INFO: The Stranger
posted by Egon on Wednesday, November 05, 2003

WILL EISNER TODAY
The Miami Herald speaks with Will Eisner about his most recent book, "Fagin the Jew." "Stereotypes are essential to the medium," says Eisner. "They are not bad. It's become a bad word. But when done properly a stereotype is perfectly good. It's the bad ones that are intended to hurt somebody.'' According to the Herald, Eisner "still works a full eight hours almost every day in his Tamarac office and has several other graphic novels in various stages of development on his drawing boards."
INFO: The Miami Herald
posted by Egon on Wednesday, November 05, 2003

RAW, BOILED, AND COOKED
Barnes & Noble's website includes a listing for "Raw, Boiled, and Cooked: Comics on the Verge," a volume designed as a catalog for the travelling art show of the same name. The show features Raw contributors and other cartoonists and was first presented at San Francisco's Yerba Buena Center for the Arts in 2002. In a post to the Comics Journal's message board, show curator Paul Candler elaborates: "The show is travelling right now and will be opening at Maryland Institute College of Art in Baltimore on January 30th. The catalog publication date is to coincide with this opening. It's perfect bound, full-color throughout, with an 80 page portfolio section. Includes texts by me, Renny Pritikin, Dan Nadel, and the class that I am helping George Ciscle with right now... All 39 artists are represented in the catalog and there are a number of new artists who were not in the Yerba Buena Show who are in the travelling show. Bill Griffith has an unpublished eight page story and the cover you see on [Barnes & Noble's website] is not the cover the book will have." Candler notes that a program of events will take place at MICA to coincide with the show's opening. The "Raw, Boiled, and Cooked" companion volume will be published by Last Gasp Eco-funnies, Inc.
INFO: Barnes & Noble
INFO: Yerba Buena Center for the Arts
INFO: The Comics Journal
LINK: Maryland Institute College of Art
posted by Egon on Sunday, November 02, 2003

HIRSCHFELD'S HARLEM
Playbill reports the upcoming republication of Al Hirschfeld's out-of-print volume "Harlem," due in February 2004 from Applause Books. "In addition to the original drawings, the tome will feature 20 new short essays by prominent African-Americans, sketches of black artists Hirschfeld created after the initial publication of the book, and some Hirschfeld drawings never before published."
INFO: Playbill
INFO: Applause Books
posted by Egon on Sunday, November 02, 2003

TIME GETS FIXED
Time magazine's online comics columnist Andrew Arnold reviews "The Fixer: A Story from Sarajevo," Joe Sacco's forthcoming work of comics reportage. "[Sacco] works in a realistic style closer to the lithographs of pre-photography newspapers: finely detailed, textured black and white images that mimic the look of the real world... He combines the verisimilitude of documentary imagery with the arrangement of the most carefully scripted fiction."
INFO: Time
posted by Egon on Sunday, November 02, 2003

THE WORLD OF ABU
The Tribune of India runs a lengthy appreciation of the late cartoonist Abu Abraham, the subject of a travelling retrospective organized by his widow, Psyche. "Abu Abraham is perhaps the only Indian cartoonist who has had the distinction of working for The Observer for 10 years (1956-66) and thereafter with The Guardian for three years (1966- 69)." Abraham then returned to India and became a political cartoonist for the Indian Express. The Tribune quotes at length from the epilogue to Abraham's memoir to provide a brief biographical sketch of Abraham's later career: "In 1981, he left The Express and began to syndicate his work to half a dozen newspapers. That year he also started his strip cartoon, Salt and Pepper, which ran for nearly 20 years in various publications. Abu authored several books. He also edited a collection of cartoons from all over the world on the Vietnam war and a collection of cartoons by Indian cartoonists—the Penguin Book of Indian cartoons. He was given a special award by the British Film Institute for his animated cartoon film, No Arks... Abu... continued to draw and write until his death on December 1, 2002."
INFO: The Tribune
posted by Egon on Sunday, November 02, 2003

GOREY END, IN SONG
Musical group the Tiger Lillies have collaborated with the Kronos Quartet to produce "Gorey End," an album of material "freely adapted from the works of Edward Gorey." According to a Moscow Times article reproduced on the band's website, the record "is based on the poems and prose of the late U.S. writer and illustrator Edward Gorey, who in 1999 wrote a letter to the band suggesting a collaboration. The band agreed, but Gorey died the following year before he had the opportunity to hear the resulting songs, which use pre-existing Gorey texts chosen by Gorey and [Martyn] Jacques (and occasionally reworked to conform to rhythms) as lyrics."
INFO: Angel Records
INFO: The Tiger Lillies
posted by Egon on Sunday, November 02, 2003

COCONINO: FROST, SWINNERTON &c.
The latest update posted to the Coconino World website includes an A.B. Frost story called "It is the Unexpected that Happen," drawings by Heinrich Kley and examples of James Swinnterton's "Canyon Kiddies," among other material.
INFO: Coconino World
posted by Egon on Sunday, November 02, 2003

JOHNNY R. SPEAKS
The "Easy Midget" website interviews "Angry Youth Comix" cartoonist Johnny Ryan. "As a kid I wanted to be a cartoonist, but as I grew up I became distracted by other things and influenced by other people's shitty opinions," says Ryan. "It wasn't until my 20's that I really started to take it seriously. I envy those artists that have been drawing since they were children and never lost sight of what they wanted to do."
INFO: Easy Midget
posted by Egon on Sunday, November 02, 2003

SENDAK ON NPR
Maurice Sendak appeared on the October 30 episode of NPR's "Fresh Air" to discuss "Brundibar," his most recent book. "Brundibar," written by Tony Kushner and illustrated by Sendak, "is based on a Czech opera of the same name. It was set to music by Hans Krasa, who was imprisoned in the Nazi concentration camp Terezin and later killed in Auschwitz. The opera was performed 55 times by the children of Terezin." Episodes of "Fresh Air" are archived online as streaming audio files.
INFO: NPR: Fresh Air
INFO: Amazon.com: Brundibar
posted by Egon on Sunday, November 02, 2003

UTNE NOMS: TCJ, KING-CAT, MORE
Utne editors have named nominees for the 2003 Utne Independent Press Awards in the magazine's November / December 2003 issue. Nominees include King-Cat Comics in the "General Excellence: Zines" category; Arthur and Kitchen Sink magazines for "Best New Title;" the Comics Journal for "Arts/Literary Coverage;" and Tom Tomorrow's website for "Online Political Coverage."
INFO: UTNE
posted by Egon on Sunday, November 02, 2003

MONSTER PARTY, USA
USA Today briefly reviews "Gahan Wilson's Monster Party," the latest collection of Wilson's cartoons. The thematic compilation, published by iBooks, "includes the first cartoon [Wilson] got paid for."
INFO: USA Today
posted by Egon on Sunday, November 02, 2003

EYE ON CHESTER BROWN
Guy Leshinski talks with Chester Brown in his "Panelist" comic arts column for Toronto's weekly "Eye" magazine. "With Riel, I wanted to show what the medium is capable of," says Brown. "It seems that most people who use [comics] to tell a historical story are very narration-heavy. They use narration blocks in every panel. And there's not a lot of panel-to-panel continuity. That's not the best way to use the medium."
INFO: The Eye
posted by Egon on Sunday, November 02, 2003